1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to gathering product order and shipping information and in particular to augmenting and aggregating such information that was communicated by email.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The acquisition of goods and services (hereinafter individually and collectively referred to as product) is ever increasing. Further, such acquisitions are commonly handled electronically today either by an online purchase or an electronic confirmation of such purchase. For example, it is common today to place an order with an online merchant such as AMAZON.COM® of Seattle, Wash. The online merchant then typically sends to the purchaser an order confirmation in an electronic form such as an email message. Subsequently, the online merchant and/or shipping company typically sends a shipping confirmation to the purchaser also in an electronic form such as an email message. While such transactions have become increasingly common and quite convenient, this convenience comes with some downsides as well.
A typical prior art online transaction scenario will now be explained with reference to FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 1, a user operating a user computing device 101 such as a personal computer, handheld computing device or smartphone communicates across a network 102 such as the internet to an online merchant 104 to shop for and consummate an online transaction to acquire some product. This is typically performed by the user operating an application such as a web browser running on the user computing device 101. When the online transaction is complete, online merchant 104 typically sends details of the completed transaction to the user computing device 101 for display to the user typically in a window of the same application running on the user computing device 101. Online merchant 104 also typically sends an email message to the user of user computing device 101 confirming the transaction. Such an order confirmation email message is typically sent from the online merchant 104 to an email server 106 which is accessible to the user computing device 101 via an email application running on the user computing device 101. Subsequently, when the order is ready to be shipped to the user either by the online merchant 104 or by a shipping company 108 acting on behalf of the online merchant 104, a shipping confirmation email message is typically sent from either the online merchant 104 or the shipping company 108 to the email server 106 which is, again, accessible to the user computing device 101 via the email application running on the user computing device. In this way, the user who consummates an online transaction to acquire some product receives an order confirmation and a shipping confirmation of the ordered product.
Referring now to FIG. 2, an exemplary prior art display window 200 of an email application as may be running on the user computing device 101 of FIG. 1 can be seen. As shown in window 200 of the email application is a column of email message folders 201 (e.g., an Inbox folder, a Sent Items folder, a Deleted Items folder and a Spam folder) on the left hand side with the Inbox folder underlined and in bold thereby indicating that it is the currently selected email message folder for display. Next to the email message folders column 201 is a slider bar 203, an email message sender column 205, a message subject line column 207 and an email message sent date column 209. Each displayed email message line in the email message sender column 205, the message subject line column 207 and the email message sent date column 209 corresponds to a single email message and, as is known in the art, slider bar 203 can be used to scroll the displayed email message lines up and down in window 200.
In this way, a user of the email application can view a limited portion of a number of the email messages received by the email application. In particular, in the example shown in FIG. 2, the user can view limited portions of various email messages received by the email application sent from email message senders such as “Bob Smith,” “Mary Jones,” “John Green,” “Lisa Adams,” etc., as indicated in email message send column 205. As also shown in this example are limited portions of email messages received from senders such as “Apple” and “Amazon,” which are email messages sent by APPLE INC.® of Cupertino, Calif. and AMAZON.COM® of Seattle, Wash., respectively.
The email messages sent by email message senders “Apple” and “Amazon” have corresponding email message subjects as indicated in email message subject line column 207 and corresponding email message sent dates as indicated in email message sent date column 209. In particular, as shown in the figure there are two email messages indicated as being sent by Apple and one email message indicated as being sent by Amazon in the email message sender column 205.
The topmost email message indicated as being sent by Apple has a corresponding email message subject of “Shipping Confirmation Order No. . . . ” as shown in the email message subject line column 207 (as is known in the art the remainder of the email message subject line text is cutoff, as indicated by the ellipses, due to the width constraints of the email message subject line column 207) and a corresponding email message sent date of “May 26, 2011.” This indicates that Apple sent an email message on May 26, 2011 confirming shipment of an order. The next email message indicated as being sent by Apple has a corresponding email message subject of “Order Confirmation—Order No. . . . ” with a corresponding email message sent date of “May 25, 2011.” This indicates that Apple sent an email message on May 25, 2011 confirming that an order has been placed.
Of course, as is common and known in the art, other information about the shipping confirmation and other information about the order confirmation is contained in the respective email messages themselves (either in the cutoff portion of the email message subject line or the email message body itself) despite not being shown in the email application window 200. Such information can include, for example, the order number, the shipping date, the expected delivery date, the item or items ordered, including their descriptions and quantity, the individual and/or total price paid including any taxes and/or shipping costs, etc. However, as indicated by the example of FIG. 2, such further information is not typically displayed in the email application window 200 thus requiring the user to open each individual email message for display in order to be able to view the further information contained therein. While perhaps not too problematic for a user who has only recently ordered few items, this can become quite troublesome for a user who orders more items over time and particularly when those items are ordered from more than one online merchant and may be shipped by more than one online merchant or shipping company. In this latter case, the user wishing to check what was ordered and when, or wishing to check the shipping status of an order, or wishing to see what the ordered item looks like, finds himself wading through numerous old email messages to find the desired information, having to use the scroll bar 203 to review the hundreds or thousands of old email message lines displayed in email application window 200 by sender, subject and sent date, and may also require moving between those message items displayed in the Inbox folder and those messages displayed in the Deleted Items folder (or those message items displayed in an Archived Items folder (not shown)). This problem is compounded when items are backordered (and the online merchant sends additional emails to that effect to the user), or when the user wants to return items, in which case the user must locate information (in the emails or online) about the return policy as well as details about the ordered items and their delivery.
What is needed, therefore, is a way for a user to more readily be able to view information about ordered items, as well as view updated shipping and delivery status information as it becomes available.